A fine-tuned Oakville stead fit for 10 and a dog

He may be one of Canada’s busiest lyric tenors, but the bustle really revs up when Michael Schade arrives home to the eight kids in his blended family — it’s like a scene out of The Sound of Music.

“I love coming home, there’s a wonderful dynamic in our household,” says the 40-something maestro, who’s equally at ease in his lakeside Oakville house as he is in the ornate opera houses of New York, Paris, Los Angeles and London. Another home, in Vienna, Austria, is the European base for his global concert tours.

Daily life is always action-filled, his partner, Dee McKee says: “[There are] violin lessons for the kids, hockey, homework, dinner prep. And Michael often has rehearsals to midnight — our lives as a blended family are enjoyably full.”

Despite the hurly-burly existence, the couple have found a balance between Mr. Schade’s globetrotting to deliver arias and family gatherings at home, as well as completing a major house renovation.

A long-time resident of Oakville, Mr. Schade (pronounced “Shah-deh”) returned to the area to buy his 4,500-square-foot home after living in an Etobicoke condo. “I grew up in Oakville, and my heart remains here,” he says.

Born in Petit-Lancy, Geneva, Switzerland, Mr. Schade was raised in his early childhood in Switzerland and Germany. His engineer father’s work with Inco’s European office brought the family to Canada in 1977. Mr. Schade attended St. Michael’s Choir School and later earned an honours degree in performance at the University of Western Ontario and a masters in opera from the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia.

A prolific recording artist, Mr. Schade maintains an exhaustive schedule of solo and collaborative concerts and recitals. His two Juno awards for classical album of the year (vocal or choral performance awarded in 1998 and 2007), and a 2002 Grammy for best choral performance, own pride of place beside the black baby grand in his remodelled home music room. He’s one of the first Canadians given the title of Kammersänger, Austria’s highest honour for singers.

Though the acclaim keeps on coming, Mr. Schade stays firmly grounded by what’s most important to him: family, friends and home. “I leave the recitals and rehearsals back at the ‘office,’” he says. “At home we can create things just our own.”

He credits the home’s freshened upscale design and decor to Ms. McKee. “She’s the leader here, and the genius who makes it all work,” he says.

Ms. McKee has one guiding mantra: “I never buy anything I don’t like, regardless of the current trends, and I never make a purchase just to fill a corner — I prefer to leave it empty,” she says. “My key is to ensure that any piece can be moved into any room in the house and still look great: The chairs in the living room have been in my bedroom, the library, the entrance and the family room; now they live in the formal front room and will stay there — for now.”

She describes her sourcing habits as eclectic, finding pieces at big box retailers, vintage shops and garage sales. “People in Oakville actually get rid of really nice stuff,” she says. “The dining chairs and buffet were less than the fabric I used to recover the seats. The furniture in the family room is all from a secondhand store and a warehouse sale; throw in a $25 Ikea coffeetable that the kids never get yelled at for being precious, and you have our family room done for under $2,500.”

To gain more space for their extended family, the recent renovation to the house carved out three updated bedrooms and two bathrooms upstairs, a powder room on the main floor, and three new bedrooms and two full bathrooms in the basement, along with a Jack and Jill in the children’s area.

The double window in the upstairs master bedroom was replaced by a double door leading to a Juliet balcony above a new two-storey Victorianesque portico. “We have a nice place to go for our morning coffee on warm spring mornings,” Mr. Schade says. “We see the lake from up there and it’s like a treehouse in the summer. The neighbours joke that it is Dee’s spot to be serenaded.”

But it is the revamped kitchen, with its impressive 16-foot-high vaulted ceiling, that sparks a special sense of pride for Ms. McKee. “The doors came from a refacing company in Montreal and the appliances are all from Oakville Appliance,” she says. The countertops are granite and were polished during the reno. The island was re-built in solid wood and topped with a maple chopping block. “I like the warmth of wood on an island, too much stone can be cold in a kitchen,” she notes. “The round table sits all 10 of us. It is the most democratic as there is no head of the table.”

While Ms. McKee was responsible for the kitchen’s redesign, Mr. Schade devised the blueprint for the cozy music room and adjoining conservatory-style sunroom addition: “I wanted the sunroom to be round, cedar-framed and bay-windowed for a warm, beautiful area of our home,” he says. “This is a light-filled addition to our life and a perfect hub when friends drop in,” he says. “A conservatory brings your garden into your home, and your home into the garden. With plenty of ventilation and glass all around, our family and pet can enjoy that outdoor feeling year-round.”

After spending New Year’s in a Vienna theatre singing in Die Fledermaus, Mr. Schade is now back in his Oakville home — but he isn’t resting. He will sing the male lead of Tamino in The Canadian Opera Company’s winter production of Mozart’s fairytale The Magic Flute, running until Feb. 25th. It is the same role that launched his European debut in 1991, igniting a career that’s been on an upward trajectory ever since.

A Leafs fan, singing regularly at their home games, who enjoys bird-watching, cooking, hiking, golfing and Formula One racing, Mr. Schade is passionate about a variety of things. The finely scrolled message painted over the framed doorway to the music room says it all. It reads: “Home is Where Your Story Begins.”